


Yellow Spandex and Other Life Choices

by rusting_roses



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Gen, background Nita/Kit, mutant love, where did that meta come from?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-29
Updated: 2012-02-29
Packaged: 2017-10-31 22:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rusting_roses/pseuds/rusting_roses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmela, Dairine and Nita have a girls night together. Mutant love, yellow spandex, Stryker on Pluto, curled hair and bacon are all absolutely valid topics for commentary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yellow Spandex and Other Life Choices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Reading Redhead (readingredhead)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/readingredhead/gifts).



Nita shouldn't giggle. She _really_ shouldn't. As a good friend, Nita knew that she was supposed to support Kit in his times of need, even if that time of need was simply defending him from the teasing of his family. He'd done it for her more than once, running interference when Dairine had taken Nita's last nerve and was doing her best to crush it, thus pushing Nita to speed up the entropy of the universe by killing her sister in some bloody fashion. 

It was very difficult to keep that in mind when she was busy trying not to laugh herself sick at Kit's expression. 

Carmela and Kit were standing on opposite ends of the room, her expression gleeful and his murderous. Every time Kit moved to try and escape, Carmela brandished the DVDs in her hands. "What's wrong?" she asked in the midst of their feint-and-retreat dance. "I thought you'd enjoy this. Don't you want to get in touch with your mutant heritage?" she continued far too innocently. "They're your brothers and sisters by friendship, if not in blood!" 

Kit's scowl was prodigious. "It's a good thing I've got those brothers and sisters, then," he managed through gritted teeth. "Because I'm about to be short one blood relative!" 

With that, Kit snatched up one of the pillows and headed for Carmela, who shrieked and ran out of the room, Kit brandishing his weapon of choice as he chased after her. Nita listened to them race around the house, on the verge of collapsing with laughter. Tears were streaming down her face with the force of her snickering, a fact Kit was sure not to appreciate. From the other room, there was a series of thumps, and then Kit yelped. 

Carmela came waltzing back into the family room, not a hair out of place, still carrying the DVDs. "So," she panted, a little out of breath, "I was thinking a movie night. A girl's night, really, if Dairine is free. Tomorrow." She raised her voice to shout, "And you're not invited, el Niño!" 

"Oh, Powers Above!" Kit called back, wheezing a little and still sounding annoyed, "How will I ever survive without seeing the X Men trilogy?" He limped a little coming into the room; the scowl hadn't left his face. 

"Didn't you hear?" Carmela inquired brightly. Her smirk was devious. "They came out with a new one!" 

Kit's mouth dropped open. Staring at the ceiling, he all but stamped his foot, and yelled, "Seriously? _Seriously?_ " Muttering unkind things about Marvel and the Powers that would have gotten his mouth washed out with soap if his mama was there to hear it—Carmela just cackled with delight—Kit collapsed into the seat next to Nita and leaned against her. He covered his face with his hands. "Just kill me. Kill me now, I can't _believe_ her!" 

Nita's mouth twitched. "Carmela or Helena?" she asked. 

Kit shot her a lot. "Both," he growled. 

Nita smothered the entirely unsympathetic laughter still bubbling in her chest and kissed Kit. He remained motionless for a moment before giving in, kissing her back sweetly for a moment until Carmela's increasingly elaborate gagging noises could no longer be ignored. When they broke the kiss, Carmela lightly swatted them both with the DVD cases. When Kit glared up at her, Carmela fluttered her lashes. "Ah, young mutant love," she sighed. 

Kit remained stock-still for a moment. "Killing her would not count as speeding up the entropy of the universe," he protested a little desperately to Nita. "I'd be doing the world a service. The Powers ought to give me a medal for it." 

Carmela swatted at him with the DVDs again, and Kit barely dodged. Sniffing haughtily, Carmela repeated to Nita, "Tomorrow, your house, seven. Pizza should be involved." Brandishing her films ones last time at Kit, who lurched back from them as if they were radioactive, Carmela smiled and sashayed out of the room. 

"She will be the death of me," Kit moaned, burying his face in Nita's shoulder. "Be merciful and just kill me now." 

Well, she'd never said she was that good of a friend. 

Nita dissolved helplessly into giggles. 

~*~ 

Carmela breezed inside right at seven, a bag over one shoulder filled to the brim with the various items she deemed essential for a night at the Callahan residence, and a pillow in her free hand. Everyone was in the kitchen, busily setting out plates and cups as well as putting out the extra seasonings various members of the family favored. "Hi, Mr. Callahan!" she said brightly. He nodded at her, smiling at her briefly before pulling a pan out of the oven. 

"Sorry, let me set this down, Carmela," he apologized, setting it down on the countertop and returning for the second pizza. 

Carmela just nodded her agreement and then turned to her friends. "Yum, pizza! Hey, Neets, Dair," she greeted; they returned her hellos with their own quick smiles. "Where should I put this?" she asked, gesturing to her bag. 

Nita pointed Carmela to the family room, where blankets and pillows had been laid out across the floor. "Anywhere is fine; just set it down, and you can come grab a slice of pizza," Nita called from the kitchen. "We made some Hawaiian-style just for you!" 

"That's why you're my favorite, Neets!" Carmela shouted back as she dropped her belongings at the base of one of the armchairs and before rummaging through it and pulling down out the very DVDs she'd threatened Kit with. She put them on top of the DVD player, grinning, before turning back to the kitchen. "I hope you're ready for mutant politics!" she cackled, with the same unholy glee in her voice as when she'd been teasing Kit. 

"You were serious about watching the X Men films?" Nita inquired, raising her eyebrows in surprise. She stopped, staring at Carmela, the spices in her arms forgotten. 

"Of course!" Carmela looked offended at the notion that Nita hadn't thought she was serious. "Haven't you ever seen them?" She put a hand to her breast as though Nita had dealt her a mortal wound when Nita warily shook her head. "How is that even possible?!" 

Nita shook her head, a reluctant smile tugging on her mouth. She put the spices on the table, and then propped her hands on her hips. "No, I haven't. I mean, I know the basic story, the telepath guy and the magnet guy battle each other, but that's pretty much all I know. Dairine?" 

Dairine brandished the pizza cutter. "What do you think?" she asked, only a little scathingly. Nita rolled her eyes; she'd thought it was a safe assumption, but one never quite knew with Dairine. Her love for Star Wars and Star Trek may be unparalleled, but comic superheros had never gripped her in quite the same way. 

"Dair," Mr. Callahan said in gentle chastisement, and Dairine sighed. 

"Yes, I've seen all three, and I've read—" 

"Four." 

"Four?" 

"Yes, four," Carmela corrected with a sly grin. "They just came out with a new one this past summer, didn't you know?" 

Dairine brightened. "No, I didn't hear!" Carmela didn't comment; Dairine's work on Wellakh had kept her out of the loop of current literature and film in particular so she wasn't surprised at all that Dairine had missed the film entirely. "What's that one about?" 

Carmela grabbed two slices of the pineapple-and-ham pizza and liberally doused it with red pepper flakes, launching into an explanation of the newest film which was, as Nita discovered, actually a prequel film. They threw about phrases like "pulled from the Hellfire Club" and "working with the CIA" and "totally changed what Moira MacTaggert does, but then they totally did that for the back story of Erik and Charles too" that left Nita simply nodding and smiling as she made her way through her own slices of pizza in silence, her dad having long since escaped with a kiss on Dairine and Nita's head and the admonishment to, "not wreck the house, please, that's all I'm asking." 

They cleaned up the kitchen shortly after, and then Carmela hastened to get them all into the family room so they could watch. As Carmela set up the DVD, Nita asked Dairine, "Wait, so we have the first three films, which are about the X Men versus the Brotherhood of Mutants, but the prequel film is what, just about Professor X and Magneto meeting?" 

"And how they became the Prof and Magneto," Carmela said before Dairine could say anything. "It's a whole origin story, except they didn't screw it up the way they did with the Wolverine: Origins film." 

"O...kay?" Nita replied slowly, obviously confused. 

Carmela waved a hand. "Ignore that. As far as you're concerned, there are only four films." Nita just nodded obediently. Satisfied that Nita would strike the idea of the Wolverine film from her head, Carmela clapped her hands when the first film loaded, and hit play, settling down with everyone. 

"Wait, I have one last question," Nita said, as Magneto walked away from Professor X in the opening sequence, "What is _with_ them? You'd think mortal enemies would be more...enemy-ish." In all honesty, it reminded her a little bit of the Lone Power and the One's Champion, on those rare times when she'd seen them interacting. Most movies these days, however, especially superhero ones, tended to have clear divisions between black and white. 

"Well," Carmela drawled, tilting her head as she studied the screen intensely, "if you ask the internet... it's mostly 'cause they're having wild monkey sex in their free time." 

Nita choked on her next breath and tried to bleach the image of the Lone Power and the One's Champion having sex from her mind. 

Some things mortals weren't meant to imagine. 

~*~ 

"Yellow spandex?" Nita questioned, raising an eyebrow despite herself the second Scott mentioned it to Logan as a comparison for the black uniforms they were already wearing. "Isn't yellow spandex a bit...bright for espionage?" She knew she sounded confounded, but couldn't help it. 

Carmela and Dairine burst into giggles, exchanging glances and refusing to answer Nita's _perfectly reasonable_ question despite her best efforts. 

~*~ 

"Go _away_!" Nita yelled as she threw a piece of popcorn at the screen in the midst of the second film, nailing Stryker right between the eyes. "You...you..." she failed to think of an insult appropriately scathing and was thus forced to settled for, "Pox-ridden, maggot-infested, ignorant, cruel, mutant-phobic _dingbat!_ " 

Carmela and Dairine stared at her in silence, eyes wide, and Stryker continued to attempt to converse with Wolverine on screen. A handful of popcorn fell out Carmela's hand and back into the bowl. "Nita!" she exclaimed with great respect. 

Nita flushed. "He's a bully and he's _awful_." 

"He's probably the only character in the films that I would aim my hair curler at," Carmela agreed casually, flicking her hair over her shoulder. Somewhere between the first and second films, she must have unbraided it—Nita hadn't noticed. "In fact, I'd let Sker'ret send him to Rashah before Memeki got her hands on that place." 

Dairine grinned. "Why don't we just let Nita send him to Pluto? That'll straighten him out—assuming he doesn't freeze to death." 

"For the last time, Dair—there was _nothing wrong_ with my shields!" 

Perhaps Nita should have expected it, but throwing the popcorn at her sister was the instigator to an all-out war. 

~*~ 

When Carmela moved to put the third film in, Dairine groaned. "Come on, we don't have to watch that one, do we? It's the worst one! I'd rather see the new one!" 

Carmela glared before saying loftily, "I am putting this film on, even if it's more or less terrible, because Nita hasn't seen it. And therefore she has to have the experience at least once." 

Dairine scowled, and Nita glanced between the pair of them. "If it's that bad, we can just go to the other one. I really don't mind." 

Carmela gasped dramatically, falling to the ground as if she'd been stabbed. "We can't do that!" Then she winked from her prone position. "After all, we need some background noise while we discuss our potential mutant powers and I curl Nita's hair." 

"What?" Dairine and Nita said at the same time. 

"Come on!" Carmela coaxed. "I mean, there are a few good scenes in here, so we should watch them, but I've been trying to figure out what Kit's mutation would be for _ages!_ " 

There was a moment of silence. 

" _Please_ let me be there when you tell Kit?" Dairine asked, and Nita had to cover her mouth to stifle her giggles as she nodded. 

Carmela smirked. "I'll do you one better. I'll try and tell Helena about it while Kit's around." 

It took long, long moments for any of them to compose themselves, mostly since each time they caught each other's eyes, they found themselves dissolving into laughter once more. The movie began while they were preoccupied, but none of them paid any particular concern. Instead, Carmela started warming up her curling iron and proceeded to put most of Nita's hair into a clip so she could do the curls one at a time. 

"Well?" Carmela asked slyly. "What would his mutation be?" 

Dairine chewed thoughtfully on some popcorn. "He spoke to a rock when he first started in wizardry, right? And a car?" 

Carmela snorted, but the curling iron didn't move. It was only when the hair had been thoroughly heated that she released the newly-formed curl and arranged it next to the others. "He'd probably have one of the singularly most useless mutations ever—talking to inanimate objects." 

"I spoke to trees," Nita objected, defending him. She absently tugged at a curl until Carmela knocked away her hand. "And his first bit of wizardry was healing Ponch's nose. Besides, he's the one that's obsessed with other planets. Maybe that's what his mutation would be—the ability to do instantaneous travel. Like Kurt!" 

Carmela stared at Nita, almost comically unimpressed. "Neets, you are being _far_ too nice. There is nothing the least bit ridiculous about teleportation. I can't mock him with that!" 

Nita carefully didn't say the first thing that came to mind, which was, _I'm sure you'll find a way_. She didn't need to, because Dairine directed a brief, wicked smile at Carmela before saying, "Unless you can find a way to get Helena to watch X Men: First Class and X Men: United and make off-color jokes about Nightcrawler." 

The grin that spread across Carmela's face was a sight to behold; Nita mentally apologized to Kit in advance, but figured that he was perfectly capable of holding his own. 

Carmela took a break from curling Nita's hair to point an accusing finger at Dairine that narrowly missed smacking Nita in the face. "And you would have some sort of technological gift," she informed her friend. "Like, you could probably link up with computers at will." 

Dairine tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing. "That would probably be true," she conceded after a moment's thought. "But if we're going by our specializations, that means that Nita's probably able to like, see the future or something. And yours would have to be your steganographic gift." 

There was a moment of silence while they all considered that. 

Carmela broke it by saying delicately, "Has anyone else noticed that there are several mutants with those abilities?" At Dairine and Nita's matching raised eyebrows, she help up her hands in self-defense and then asked in a strangely serious voice, "Are we _sure_ that Stan Lee isn't a wizard?" 

When the sisters remained silent, unsure how to answer, Carmela huffed out a sigh and then said mutinously, " _Fine_ , but my secondary mutation better be the ability to put _anyone I want_ in yellow spandex." 

~*~ 

"Perfect timing!" Carmela cried as the credits started rolling. She'd just finished with the last of Nita's curls. "Usually I'm much faster than this, but you were both being distracting." She sniffed a little for effect. Looking critically at her friend, she smiled suddenly. "Curls are a good look for you, Neets." Then, more wickedly, "They'd totally make my brother want to fall to his knees." 

Nita blushed, tried to stammer something, and failed as Dairine and Carmela shamelessly laughed at her. She shoved lightly at Carmela. "Just go put the last movie on, before I fall asleep," she demanded. 

Carmela smirked, but complied, switching out the DVDs. "You should have seen the trailers for these," she said as she worked. "You would have appreciated them, both of you, now." 

"Oh?" Dairine said, curious despite herself. 

Carmela made a humming noise of agreement. "Yeah, they did this whole thing where they—no, I'll ruin it. Dair, where's Spot?" 

Dairine blinked. "Upstairs, running some star subroutines last time I checked. He wasn't interested in watching mutants." 

"Snag him for a minute, and ask him to act like a regular computer for a moment? The trailer will be on YouTube." Carmela adopted an angelic expression. "Please and thank you!" 

A few seconds later, Spot scuttled into the room. He raised his eyes and asked a little dryly, _You rang?_ loud enough for them all to hear. 

"Well, can you do it?" Dairine demanded, impatient as always. Nita and Carmela made faces at each other; typical Dairine. Whatever Spot said in response—if anything—no one but Dairine could hear, and she continued to look down at her living Manual-come-friend-come-wizardly partner-come-computer. After a second, he popped open his lid, and everyone obediently crowded around the screen. 

Spot brought the requisite trailer up without any prompting from Dairine; Nita thought briefly about how wonderful it would be to have a computer that one could just verbally ask to do things. Even now, seeing it in front of her, it felt more like science fiction than science fact, even if there was wizardry involved. 

_Before he was Professor X, he was Charles_ read the words onscreen, and Carmela, to all evidence helpless to resist, read them aloud in the most dramatic and ridiculous voice she could possibly manage. "Before he was Magneto, he was Erik," she continued over the choking laughter Dairine and Nita were trying to swallow so that their dad wouldn't come down and chastise them for being so loud. 

Then the voiceover began, of President Kennedy speaking about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Dairine and Nita were riveted. "Oh, that's Mystique!" Nita pointed out softly. 

This time, as the words, _Witness the Beginning_ arose on screen, Carmela didn't read them aloud, merely watching with them until the trailer had finished. 

"That...looks really, really amazing," Dairine said. Nita wasn't surprised to see the expression of awe on her face. Though she'd always preferred the space travel element of Star Wars and Star Trek, and had adored the concept of being able to travel to astonishing new worlds, she nevertheless enjoyed superheroes and all they entailed. 

Thinking of superheroes made her think of Roshaun and Dairine, burning with sunlight on the moon, and Nita had to swallow and look away before her sister could catch sight of her expression and figure out what was on Nita's mind. "It does," she murmured, voice rasping only a little. "So let's watch!" 

~*~ 

"Powers Above—they're actually wearing yellow spandex. On a beach in Cuba. _Why are they wearing yellow spandex?! Are they trying to stand out like neon signs?!_ Both of you— _stop laughing!_ " 

~*~ 

"Wait, so...that's it?" Nita paused the film, looking askance at the other two. "Charles gets shot on the beach, and it's mostly Erik's fault and Erik...leaves? That's it?" She was looking rather wild-eyed by the end of it, and Dairine wasn't much better. Carmela winced, but Nita was already speaking again. "How could he do that?!" 

Dairine's shock had turned into a proper scowl, and her arms were crossed in front of her chest. "That's not how it happened in the comics," she accused. 

Carmela rolled her eyes. "Did you expect it to be like the comics? I mean, really? They turned Moira into a CIA agent, instead of a geneticist like Charles. And there's the whole thing where Alex is supposed to be Scott's _younger_ brother not like...his father. Cause he's totally old enough to be his father assuming the space-time continuum doesn't explode." 

Dairine was forced to concede the point, but she continued to look displeased by it. Nita, however, was still stuck on the fact that Erik had abandoned everyone on the beach. "I think he wins the 'Worst Friend Ever' award," she commented, waving her hands emphatically. "Seriously, how could he just do that? Charles helps him kill Shaw and what, that's not enough? And Charles is _paralyzed_ , that's so awful!" She blinked, and then raised a hand to her cheeks, eyes overfull. Somehow the abandonment struck closer to home than she'd expected. How many times had she put her life on the line for Kit, or him for her? Their relationship worked because they trusted each other with anything and everything. To see Erik gladly turn his back on it, even knowing his reasons, was painful. 

Carmela suddenly pulled her into a tight hug, heedless of her curls, and Dairine joined her on the other side while Nita wiped hastily at her eyes, feeling faintly ridiculous. She pushed them away gently, and they curled against her silently as Nita restarted the film. 

~*~ 

"...I stand corrected. I think that helmet alone is an appropriate the punishment for forming the Brotherhood. He looks like a bug. I sort of feel like if he stands out too long in the sun under a glass roof he's liable to burst into flame. Powers Above, that would be a suitable ending." 

~*~ 

It was almost noon when Kit finally poked his head in the family room to ask, "Is it safe yet?" only to find that everyone was just barely stirring amidst the blankets and pillows. 

"Go _away_ ," Carmela moaned, shoving her head beneath a pillow. Kit snickered at her, so she threw the pillow at him and pulled the blanket over her head instead. "Forget teleportation, your mutation is showing up at the _worst possible time, just go away and let me sleep, God_." 

"My mutation?" Kit inquired dangerously, raising his brows. "Did you spend last night discussing my _mutation?_ " 

"To be fair," Carmela said, voice muffled, "We discussed all our mutations." Then, as if she really hoped it would work this time, she continued, "Now be quiet and _go away_." 

"And what are your mutations?" Kit demanded stubbornly, raising his voice a little so they couldn't ignore him. If they were going to assign him a random mutation, he wasn't going to let up until he knew theirs, too. 

"Technological," Dairine stated, raising a hand without opening her eyes. She was curled up on the couch under a mound of blankets, her Star Wars pajamas barely visible and her red hair an utter mess. Spot was parked atop the mound, legs and eyes gone and leaving him looking like a perfectly ordinary laptop. 

"Prophetic," Nita added after Kit nudged her with his foot. She wasn't much better; she was sprawled across the floor next to Carmela, camisole rucked up around her waist, baring an enticing strip of skin. Nita opened one eye to glare at him, but it was really more of a squint. Kit averted his eyes, flushing, and cleared his throat. 

"What about you, 'Mela?" he asked with a sort of fatalistic desire to know. He'd come this far, after all. 

"Steganographic. But I can totally turn any clothing you're wearing into yellow spandex _with my mind_." 

Kit stared at Carmela. _Just when I thought she couldn't make any_ less _sense..._ "Okay," he said aloud, with only the barest hint of confusion in his voice. "Like...in the original X Men costumes? From the comics?" 

"Yes." 

Kit thought about that for a moment. " _Why?_ " 

"Because I _can_ ," Carmela replied, then yanked one of Nita's pillows out from under her since she'd thrown hers at Kit. Nita yelped and smacked Carmela's arm before turning her face into her remaining pillows to block out the sun. 

"You do realize that Kevlar was originally yellow, right?" Kit queried imperiously. "The mutant comics first came out in the 60s, around the time when Kevlar was invented, so of course they were wearing blue and yellow. I wouldn't want to get shot accidentally-on-purpose while saving the world." 

That, finally, made Carmela raise her head. "How do you know that!" she cried. "Seriously, what is _wrong_ with your _brain?_ Forget teleportation or annoying me, your mutation is totally being the king of all the useless knowledge in the world. Why, Kit, _why_?" She dropped her face into her pillow and moaned, "Go away, let me sleep." 

Kit gazed down at all of them—Dairine still curled up on the couch, Carmela's head buried beneath her pillow, Nita's sprawled and limp form—and rolled his eyes. "I guess you guys shouldn't have sleepovers anymore if it means that you don't want to eat the brunch Mama's making for you all—" 

"Food?" All three girls perked up at that, looking awake for the first time since Kit had come in. 

"Yes. And if you don't move, I'd be more than happy to eat all of the bacon she made—" Kit had to practically throw himself out of the way as all three immediately started throwing on robes and slippers in their rush to get out the door. Before he gathered his wits, Carmela and Dairine were pushing past him, running out the door completely heedless of their attire; at least it wasn't more than a few blocks. 

Nita let them go, and smiled at Kit, the early morning grumpiness wearing off to leave her mussed and warm. He leaned in, pressing a brief kiss to her cheek that made her flush appealingly. She returned the favor, and then dragged him outside, shouting over her shoulder, "We better get there before they eat everything!" 

Kit blinked once, and then joined her laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> for 's prompt: Dairine&Nita&Carmela "girls' night out" had been Carmela's idea -- whether it was a good idea remained to be seen (feel free to include any other ladies in the outing, human or not!). Sorry, I appear to have gotten some meta in this fic (I hope you don't mind) but hey, it's not a bad thing to be mutant and proud ;)


End file.
